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| “ | Why do I still live? What more do you want from me? I gave everything I had to you, to them. Look what they've made of our dream. This bloated, rotting carcass of an empire is driven not by reason and hope but by fear, hate and ignorance. Better that we had all burned in the fires of Horus' ambition than live to see this. | „ |
| ~ Roboute Guilliman seeing the state of the Imperium in the 41st millennium |
Roboute Guilliman, also known as the Avenging Son, is one of the main protagonists of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise. He is one of the Primarchs, the demigod-like genetic duplicates and sons of the Emperor of Mankind. Hailed as a paragon of intelligence, loyalty, and indomitable will, Guilliman is the Primarch of the XIIIth Legion of Space Marines, the celebrated and revered Ultramarines. Both a warrior and a builder of civilizations, Guilliman fought to preserve and protect the Imperium and humanity, even in the face of an unthinkable betrayal and being thrust into a time where his father's dream had fallen into ruin.
Currently, after his miraculous return, he serves as the Lord Commander and Imperial Regent of a declining Imperium of Man, distraught by how low it had fallen and acting with an iron fist where he must, yet never forgetting the flames of hope- a hope for a brighter future for mankind in an age where there is only war.
Biography[]
Macragge[]
In the grim darkness of the far future, humanity's great stellar empire was shattered by the cataclysmic Age of Strife. As Earth, now known as Terra, fell into the anarchy of tech-barbarians, the Emperor of Mankind rose to restore the golden age of humanity. After unifying Terra in the late 29th millennium, the Emperor created the Primarchs, His transhuman sons, to lead His armies and become the guides to all mankind, launching the Great Crusade across the stars in the late 30th millennium. However, the powers of Chaos stole the infant Primarchs away from Terra, shooting their gestation pods out into the far reaches of space. Roboute Guilliman landed on the distant world of Macragge, a civilized yet rather bleak and regressed world that had once been part of a human stellar empire. Guilliman was adopted and named by a man named Konor, one of two Consuls who ruled Macragge. Konor raised Roboute with the help of Tarasha Euten, Konor's Seneschal, who became the closest thing Guilliman had to a mother. As such, unlike many of his brothers, Guilliman was raised in a cohesive family, growing fast in body and mind as he learned from the best teachers Macragge had to offer, showing his greatest strengths in his prowess as a military leader, subduing barbarian tribes and even gaining their respect, thus ending the threat without exterminating them.
Konor was eventually betrayed and murdered by his co-Consul, Gallan, due to Konor's legislation favoring the common people rather than the elites. As such, Guilliman returned to Macragge's capital and put down the rebellion, executing Gallan and being made sole Consul of Macragge. In his new position, Guilliman set about restoring society in line with his father's egalitarian vision, creating his own miniature stellar empire. The 500 Worlds of Ultramar, as it was called, consisted of self-sufficient worlds where advanced technology and wealth were distributed amongst the people rather than hoarded by elites, society remade into a meritocracy as the people prospered like never before. Then, after ruling for five years, Roboute Guilliman was met with his true father- the Emperor Himself.
Great Crusade[]
When the Emperor arrived on Macragge, He found an autonomous, verdant, wealthy, and strongly defended world at the seat of a great trade network, knowing that His son was none other than the great leader who had led these achievements. As such, the Emperor assigned the Ultramarines Legion to him, the thirteenth of twenty legions of Astartes, transhuman warriors better known as Space Marines. At the helm of the Ultramarines, Guilliman led many campaigns to bring lost human worlds into the folds of the Imperium, and to destroy the various enemies of mankind. While other Imperial forces could be extremely destructive or vassalize the worlds they conquered, Guilliman would not move on from a newly-incorporated world until he established a defense system, industrialization advisors, interstellar trade routes, and a government whose first concern was its people, reshaping once-downtrodden worlds into flourishing strongholds of humanity. Guilliman's tactical skill also allowed the Ultarmarines to perform with minimal casualties, allowing it to become among the largest of the Space Marines Legion, soon claiming the title of the single largest Legion following the destructive Rangdan Xenocides.
Guilliman would soon met his genetic brothers, some of whom were found after Guilliman joined the Imperium, who were each put at the helm of their own Legions. He grew especially close to fellow Primarchs Sanguinius, Rogal Dorn, Ferrus Manus, and Leman Russ, who he knew as the dauntless few, boasting that he could win any war as long as he had the Ultramarines and one of the dauntless few's Legions by his side. However, Guilliman still tried to get along with his other brothers, who were Horus Lupercal, Lion El'Jonson, Jaghatai Khan, Perturabo, Magnus the Red, Konrad Curze, Fulgrim, Alpharius Omegon, Angron, Mortarion, Vulkan, Lorgar Aurellian, and Corvus Corax. Guilliman was known to praise Perturabo for his thoroughness in attention to detail, and Perturabo, a craftsman and siege expert at the head of the Iron Warriors Legion, gifted Guilliman a celestial timepiece that was mounted atop Macragge's Temple of Correction.
However, Guilliman was unwillingly drawn into conflict with Lorgar and his Legion, the Word Bearers. Lorgar and his Legion had been worshipping the Emperor as a god, and spreading their doctrine to the worlds they conquered in stark defiance of the Imperial Truth, which was a policy of strict atheism. As punishment, the Emperor ordered Guilliman to destroy Monarchia, the capital city of planet Khur, a world conquered by the Word Bearers. While Guilliman was reluctant, he still had the Ultarmarines follow the orders to the letter and raze Monarchia. Once the city was in ashes, the Emperor and His aide Malcador the Sigillite brought Lorgar and the entire Word Bearers Legion into the ruins, having Guilliman stand by them, where the Emperor had Lorgar reprimanded. While Guilliman appeared supportive of his father, he was left uncomfortable and upset that his legion was used as a tool to humiliate Lorgar, which created a lasting division between the Ultramarines and Word Bearers.
Years later, in the first year of M31, Guilliman, Horus Lupercal, and Jaghatai Khan accompanied the Emperor in leading the Ullanor Crusade, a massive campaign against a powerful Ork empire. Over 100,000 Space Marines from the Ultramarines, Jaghatai's White Scars, and Horus' Luna Wolves led millions of Imperial Army soldiers in a valiant charge against the ferocious xenos, the last war where the Emperor would personally be involved. The campaign ended with the Ork Overlord, Urlakk Urg, slain by Horus, the Ork empire scattering and seemingly destroying the species as a whole. In the aftermath, the Emperor organized the Triumph on Ullanor, a great victory celebration, where Guilliman, Jaghatai, Horus, Sanguinius, Dorn, Fulgrim, Lorgar, Magnus, and Angon gathered alongside their legions and Imperial nobility. Then, to the surprise of the Primarchs, the Emperor concluded the victory parades by declaring Horus the Warmaster, or supreme commander, of the Great Crusade from that moment on, to act as a proxy for the Emperor himself. The Primarchs were divided in their opinions on the decision, some opposing it or regarding it with disbelief or cynicism, but Guilliman, along with Dorn and Jaghatai, supported Horus and legitimately believed that Horus was the most worthy among them. As such, the Emperor returned to Terra to focus on secretive matters, while Horus came to value Guilliman and Dorn as his closest advisors.
Not too long afterwards, the Emperor held the Council of Nikaea, declaring psychic powers and sorcery to be a threat to humanity, officially banning such practices, much to the opposition and alienation of master psyker Magnus and his Legion, the Thousand Sons. Additionally, the Librarius, a component of each Space Marine Legion made up of its psychic members, was promptly dissolved, the Librarians redistributed into the roles of basic battle-brothers, a decree that Guilliman accepted and carried out in his Legion.
Horus Heresy[]
Calth and Shadow Crusade[]
Roboute Guilliman forced to fight traitor Word Bearers in space without a helmet during the Battle of Calth
Unknown to Guilliman, Horus was eventually corrupted by Chaos, the very powers that had divided the Primarchs at their birth. Horus kept this corruption hidden from Guilliman, but in secret, began to organize a great rebellion against the Emperor. Horus was joined by Fulgrim, Perturabo, Magnus, Konrad, Lorgar, Mortarion, Alpharius, and Angron, along with their respective Legions, plotting to overthrow the Imperium and create a new empire for Chaos. At the start of the rebellion, forever known as the Horus Heresy, Horus began by ordering Guilliman and the Ultramarines to muster on planet Calth in Ultramar. Thus, the Ultramarines were poorly positioned to respond to the betrayal, which began when the Word Bearers invaded Calth. The Ultramarines took heavy losses, and Lorgar even summoned a Daemon to assassinate Guilliman, eager for payback for Monarchia. However, Guilliman and his forces fought back with unbreakable resolve, forcing the Word Bearers to retreat, with Guilliman even resisting a temptation to join Chaos. At the same time, Angron and his World Eaters Legion attacked isolated worlds in Ultramar, a campaign known as the Shadow Crusade, although Angron retreated with Lorgar after Guilliman's victory on Calth. Guilliman, swearing vengeance on his treacherous brothers, reinstated the Ultramarines Librarius in spite of his father's decree. Using the restored Librarians as navigators, Guilliman took what was left of his Legion and chased Lorgar and Angron to Nuceria, the foul, slaver-run planet where Angron was raised.
Arriving at Nuceria, Guilliman found it in the process of being destroyed by Angron, but landed his forces anyways. As the Ultramarines fought the assembled World Eaters and Word Bearers, Guilliman engaged Lorgar in single combat before being interrupted by an especially enraged Angron, who wore the skulls of his old slave brethren, slain en masse by the Nucerian slavers when Angron was discovered by the Emperor. During their brawl, Guilliman inadvertently destroyed one of the skulls, and Angron's resultant surge of fury allowed him to savagely pummel Guilliman to near-death, although Guilliman was rescued by his marines before Angron could finish the job. Guilliman then had his Legion retreat to Macragge to recover, while Angron was converted into a Daemon Prince of Khorne by the Word Bearers. However, during the events of the Shadow Crusade, the Word Bearers had also summoned the Ruinstorm- a great Warp Rift that cut off Ultramar and its Segmentum from Terra, isolating the Loyalist forces. Unable to contact Terra, and learning the full scope of the treason, Guilliman feared the worst, that Terra had fallen to the traitors. However, Guilliman refused to let his father's vision die, and enacted a contingency plan to continue the Imperium from Ultramar.
Imperium Secundus[]
Roboute Guilliman founds the Imperium Secundus, declaring Sanguinius to be its regent
Using a captured alien device, Guilliman sent out a beacon that drew many isolated Loyalists to Ultramar, including Lion El'Jonson and his Dark Angels Legion, much to Guilliman's relief. Guilliman confided his plan to Lion El'Jonson, but Guilliman, not wanting to fall to vanity and corruption like Horus, refused to crown himself the new emperor, or even introduce the title, as he did not even know if the Imperium had truly fallen behind the Ruinstorm. Additionally, Guilliman was struck with grief over the possible loss of everything mankind had built, left with nothing but Ultramar to depend on. As such, despite not fully trusting the Dark Angels, Guilliman tried to ask Lion El'Jonson to take on the ruling position of Imperator Regis, so that Guilliman could handle administration while El'Jonson ruled as the supreme authority and figurehead. However, as more isolated and battle-worn Loyalists flocked to Ultramar, including the incredibly battered Salamanders Legion, along with the seemingly dead Vulkan, Sanguinius eventually arrived with his Legion, the Blood Angels. Guilliman, knowing that Sanguinius was the most noble of all his brothers, convinced him to take on the mantle of Imperator Regis. As such, the reluctant but angelic Sanguinius became the Regent of the Imperium Secundus, with Guilliman taking on the role of its Lord Warden, while Lion El'Jonson became its Lord Protector.
As the three Primarchs tried to ensure stability in what they believed to be the last of the Imperium, Guilliman narrowly survived an assassination attempt by the traitorous Alpha Legion, and the borders of Ultramar were attacked by traitor Primarch Konrad Curze. Curze soon managed to sneak his way to Macragge, where Curze sowed terror and chaos, slaughtering innocents and sparking mass unrest. Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson came into conflict with each other over how to deal with Curze, as the Lion wanted to establish martial law and firebomb whole cities to flush Curze out, especially after a trap set by Curze nearly killed both Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson. By the time of said ambush, Vulkan's body miraculously revived, but to Guilliman's dismay, Vulkan's mind had been broken to madness. Despite this, Vulkan was able to pilfer an Ultramarines armory and chased Curze across Macragge, only for Vulkan to once again be killed, seemingly for good, by mysterious Perpetual John Grammaticus. Guilliman found Vulkan's corpse, having it interred in a stasis pod hand-crafted by Guilliman himself, and given to the Salamanders, who promptly left Macragge to make for their homeworld of Nocturne, believing they could still revive Vulkan. Guilliman was reluctant to let them leave, but soon relented, allowing Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson to refocus their efforts on capturing Curze. Eventually, after much disagreement over the amount of force needed to quell more rebellions, with Guilliman not wanting to further harm his people, Lion El'Jonson successfully captured Curze in the rioting region of Illyium. At Guilliman's orders, Curze was given a public trial before his Loyalist brothers, where Curze claimed that Lion El'Jonson had secretly set up orbital weapons to use against the Illyium rebels. The Lion nearly killed Curze on the spot, prompting Sanguinius and Guilliman to expel Lion El'Jonson from the Imperium Secundus. However, Lion El'Jonson would soon return to his brothers for repentance, offering his services in being Curze's jailor.
As Curze was moved to the custody of the Dark Angels, Lion El'Jonson recounted Curze claiming to have precognitive visions of meeting his end at the hands of an assassin sent by the Emperor, resonating with Sanguinius' own precognitive visions of dying to Horus. This made Guilliman realize that the Emperor still lived, and Terra had not yet fallen. As such, the three Loyalists immediately dissolved the now-redundant Imperium Secundus, and quickly gathered their Legions to breach the Ruinstorm. However, their fleets were quickly assaulted by the traitor Legions and Daemon hordes once they entered the storm, fighting through Word Bearers before Sanguinius received a vision to go to the now-corrupted world of Davin, located within the storm, the very world where Horus had first been corrupted by Chaos. To the shock of Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson, Sanguinius took Curze with him to the surface, intending to use Curze's prophetic abilities to figure out what to do. Lion El'Jonson, narrowly refraining from firebombing the surface with Sanguinius still on it, joined Guilliman in supporting their angelic brother and his Legion. After Sanguinius overcame a powerful Daemon of Chaos Undivided, the three evacuated the planet with their forces, then destroyed Davin with Cyclonic Torpedoes, making the Daemons vanish as their link to realspace was destroyed. Additionally, Davin's destruction left a gap in the Ruinstorm, a direct route to Terra itself, where Horus and the other traitor Primarchs were launching a siege of Terra.
Guilliman, seeing a traitor blockade waiting for them on the other side of the gap, set off to distract the blockade with Lion El'Jonson's help, allowing Sanguinius to make for Terra. After destroying as many traitors as he could, Guilliman turned his forces against traitor Iron Warriors who had set up defenses across hundreds of planets, desperately rushing towards Terra as fast as he could. However, Guilliman was only a few hours too late- Horus had already slain Sanguinius aboard his flagship, and in a direct confrontation with the Emperor, Horus was completely obliterated in both body and soul, ending the Horus Heresy. However, the Emperor was left mortally wounded, and was promptly fitted to the Golden Throne, a life support device that kept the Emperor between life and death.
Post-Heresy[]
With the Emperor incapacitated, and most Loyalist Legions left decimated, Guilliman took on the mantle of Lord Commander of the Imperium, as the Ultramarines were the most intact Loyalist force left. The traitor Primarchs, save for Alpharius and Curze, fled into the Eye of Terror Warp rift. Meanwhile, although Vulkan was revived with his mind restored just before the Siege of Terra, the surviving Loyalists were still down two of their own Primarchs, as Ferrus Manus had been killed by Fulgrim at the start of the Horus Heresy. As such, Guilliman set about reclaiming worlds lost to Chaos in a crusade known as the Great Scouring, and ensuring that surviving worlds didn't fall to rebellion or alien invasions. At the same time, Guilliman tried to take measures to ensure that none of his remaining brothers could gain the same power that Horus had, which included releasing hundreds of planets from his 500 Worlds of Ultramar, drastically shrinking his realm's size. Most importantly, Guilliman dissolved every Space Marine Legion, ordering them to split into smaller Chapters, and composed the Codex Astartes tactical tome to govern these new Chapters. While the Salamanders were exempt from this command due to their extreme losses during the war, Rogal Dorn and Leman Russ strongly opposed the division of their Legions, although Jaghatai Khan and Corvus Corax readily complied and supported the move. Dorn nearly started another civil war over the matter, accusing Guilliman of being a coward while Guilliman accused Dorn of being a traitor, but fortunately, Dorn relented after meditation and deliberation with some aides. However, this led to Dorn's disastrous campaign to capture Perturabo, which resulted in Perturabo ascending to a Daemon Prince while the survivors of Dorn's Imperial Fists split into Chapters.
The Ultramarines, as the largest Legion, split into the most Chapters, although the Chapters of other Legions had varying levels of adherence to the Codex Astartes. Some, like the Ultarmarines and their successor Chapters, followed it tightly, while others would later reject all or most of it despite splitting up as ordered. Regardless, Guilliman remained in command of the now-reduced Ultramarines. As part of the Great Scouring, Guilliman also led a campaign against Alpharius, who had not fled to the Eye of Terror. Taking advantage of Alpharius' arrogance, Guilliman successfully breached the lines of Alpharius' Alpha Legion on Eskrador, fought Alpharius in single combat, and then slew his treacherous brother. However, the Alpha Legion remained relentless even without their Primarch, making Guilliman retreat and bombard Eskrador from orbit. Later, Guilliman then met with Belisarius Cawl, a Tech-Priest of the Imperium's Adeptus Mechanicus, which manufactured and controlled the Imperium's technology with religious reverence. The Primarch gave Cawl two tasks that Cawl would work on for the next 10,000 years- the creation of Primaris Marines as an upgrade to Astartes, and a way to resurrect Guilliman himself should he ever fall in battle.
In early M31, Guilliman led the Battle of Thessala against the traitorous Emperor's Children, the Legion of Fulgrim, who had all been converted into grotesque mutants known as Noise Marines, servants of the Chaos God Slaanesh. While Guilliman intended to finally kill Fulgrim, the traitor Primarch had already converted himself into a serpentine Daemon Prince of Slaanesh during the events of the Horus Heresy. In the battle, Fulgrim mortally wounded Guilliman with a slash across the throat with a poison blade, but Guilliman was evacuated by Ultramarines Apothecaries. Unable to reverse the damage, the Apothecaries quickly placed Guilliman within a stasis field, trapping his body in the moment before death, alive but effectively comatose. For the next 10,000 years, Guilliman's stasis-locked body was held in the Shrine of Guilliman on Macragge, which soon became the holiest shrine in the Imperium. Indeed, without Guilliman, and following a renewed invasion by repopulated Orks, the Imperium declined and eroded, becoming an increasingly authoritarian, theocratic state that worshipped the decaying Emperor as a god, the very thing Lorgar was punished for doing. Masses of pilgrims would come to the Shrine of Guilliman to honor the Avenging Son, as he was called, with some even claiming that the power of the Emperor was healing Guilliman's wounds in stasis. However, such healing was impossible due to the nature of stasis, and Guilliman remained in a dreamless sleep as his father's dream crumbled around him.
Era Indomitus[]
Resurrection and Terran Crusade[]
In late M41, the galaxy knew only war. Abaddon the Despoiler, once a captain of Horus' Luna Wolves, now known as the Black Legion, had led multiple Black Crusades against the Imperium of Man. Finally, in his 13th Black Crusade, Abaddon destroyed the crucial Fortress World of Cadia, which allowed the nearby Eye of Terror to burst out in the Great Rift, a Warp storm that split the galaxy in half. However, the survivors of Cadia, joined by unlikely allies of a mismatched band of Eldar known as the Ynnari, raced towards Macragge in a bid to give the Imperium what it desperately needed- hope, and leadership. Among the survivors was Archmagos Belisarius Cawl, still alive after 10,000 years, although now a towering cyborg who was far more machine than man, leading the crusade towards Ultarmar alongside the Living Saint Celestine. Once on Macragge, Cawl revealed that he brought with him a suit of life support power armor meant to mend Guilliman's wounds, along with the Emperor's Sword from Terra. Additionally, the leader of the Ynnari, Yvraine, had agreed to help in a bid to beat back the tide of Chaos. Despite the mistrust and doubt hanging over the chamber, the current Ultramarines Chapter Master, Marneus Calgar, allowed Cawl and Yvraine to proceed, while Macragge was invaded by the Black Legion.
The reborn Guilliman leading the Ultramarines against the Black Legion
While the Ultramarines held off the incoming Chaos Marines, Cawl and Yvraine got to work restoring the Primarch to life. Cawl fitted the armor to Guilliman, but Yvraine channeled the power of the Eldar god Ynnead into Guilliman, for Yvraine was the prophet of Ynnead, the nascent Eldar god of the dead. While Yvraine had failed to unite the Eldar species under her deity's banner, she knew that the resurrection of Guilliman would allow mankind to unite and stand against Chaos. As such, the alien god's power brought Guilliman to life as the power armor, the Armour of Fate, allowed him to rise. Reborn and wielding the Emperor's Sword, Guilliman strode out to meet the enemy, briefly stunning them and his own Chapter into silence, before Guilliman destroyed the invaders with righteous fury. Once the Black Legion was driven off Macragge, Guilliman was crowned as the rightful ruler of the Ultramarines, its successor Chapters, and Ultramar, with the title of Lord Macragge happily ceded to him by Calgar. Guilliman, seeing how dire the situation was, then declared that he needed the full strength of Ultramar, revoking the autonomy he had previously granted the worlds that he released after the Horus Heresy. Over the next seven months, Guilliman led his marines in driving off the other Chaos forces in the region, restoring Guilliman's 500 Worlds of Ultramar. With that, the Ynnari departed with Guilliman's wary blessing and thanks, although he and Yvraine expressed some interest in meeting as allies.
A stranger to the new time, Guilliman met with Calgar and other Ultramarines commanders, learning what had happened to the Imperium. Disgusted by the superstition, decay, tyranny, and ignorance of the modern Imperium, Guilliman remained on Macragge for many days, struck with spiritual malaise. However, he then decided to find new hope for humanity by consulting the Emperor himself on what to do next. As such, Guilliman, gathering any Imperial forces able to reach Macragge, launched the Terran Crusade to brave the Warp in a push towards Terra. However, the Warp was thrown into uproar once the forces of Chaos realized the Primarch had returned, reawakening dormant traitor Primarch Magnus, who had been converted into a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch. As such, Magnus ambushed Guilliman, trapping the Terran Crusade within the Maelstrom Warp rift, imprisoning Guilliman in chains made from Guilliman's own doubts. However, an intervention from an Eldar Harlequin and the enigmatic Cypher freed Guilliman and the surviving Terran Crusaders, allowing them to get through a Webway portal to Luna, Terra's moon. Magnus followed his brother to Luna with Magnus' Thousand Sons, battling Guilliman on the lunar surface and nearly overpowering Guilliman with psychic attacks. However, reinforcements from Terra soon arrived, including the anti-psychic Sisters of Silence, who weakened Magnus' abilities enough for Guilliman to impale his traitorous Daemon brother and cast him back through the Webway, before sealing the gate for good. At last, Guilliman could meet his father.
Indomitus Crusade and Plague Wars[]
On Terra, the Adeptus Custodes granted Guilliman an audience with the Emperor, and Guilliman entered the throne room alongside only Custodes Captain-General Valoris. The Emperor awoke for the first time since the Heresy, but what Guilliman saw on the Golden Throne was almost inhuman, psychically speaking to him with no warmth or love, regarding Guilliman with the same interest that a creator would meet a misplaced tool than a father would greet his long-lost son. The exact events of the surreal meeting are unknown, Guilliman left unable to remember all of it, with Valoris claiming that Guilliman stood in silent psychic conversation with his father while Guilliman remembers falling in agony. Regardless, the Emperor surged the dark truth of the galaxy's history through Guilliman's mind, calling him many things, from failure to savior, but one thing was clear above all, that Guilliman was the last hope of mankind. When Guilliman and Valoris finally emerged, it had been over a day, although they had only perceived two minutes pass.
Roboute Guilliman leads the Indomitus Crusade against the forces of Chaos
Leaving the throne room with new determination, Guilliman declared himself the Imperial Regent, reclaiming his title of Lord Commander of the Imperium, and had the High Lords of Terra, the top governing body of the Imperium, reorganized and rearmed under him. The High Lords had varying levels of cooperation, some of them moving to undermine him and being swiftly dealt with. Additionally, Guilliman found the so-called central bureaucracy of Terra to be in complete disarray, making the governance of the Imperium a nightmare. To further compound matters, most people Guilliman interacted with would grovel before him and worship, something Guilliman grew annoyed with. Regardless, Guilliman defended Terra from an invasion by the forces of the Chaos God Khorne, before organizing the Indomitus Crusade to reclaim the worlds devastated by the Great Rift, as the now-isolated parts of the Imperium became known as the Imperium Nihilus. Over the next century, Guilliman led the crusade across the ravaged galaxy, even accepting the aid of Eldar Farseer Illiyanne Natase, who joined the crusade as Guilliman's official liaison to Craftworld Ulthwe.
Guilliman not only led the military assaults, spearheaded by the now-finished Primaris Marines distributed across every Chapter, but also attempted sweeping civic reforms aiming to stabilize the Imperium the best he could. However, he found that many institutions were corrupted beyond repair, such as the Ecclesiarchy, or even required despite their extreme cruelties, such as the Inquisition, while the Imperium as a whole was heavily decentralized and barely stable in the wake of the 13th Black Crusade, rendering most of his reformation efforts futile. Regardless, Guilliman still drafted the Codex Imperialis, a civic document intended for reorganization of the Imperial government. Additionally, Guilliman saw that the very history of the Imperium had been warped and distorted by propaganda and the Ecclesiarchy's state religion, to the point that most Imperial citizens believed that there were only nine Primarchs, namely the Loyalists, with the traitor Primarchs instead regarded as "demons of outer Hell". As such, Guilliman intended for his work to also serve as a proper reliable history of the Imperium, the first such document in 10,000 years. For this task, Guilliman established the Logos Historica Verita, hand-selecting notable Imperial scholars and other figures known for liberal views on history. Among these new operatives was Yassilli Sulymanya, a Rogue Trader who was among the few people to treat Guilliman as a fellow human and not a living demigod, a casual relationship that came as a great relief to the Primarch, although he disapproved of Sulymanya calling him "Robu".
During the Indomitus Crusade, Guilliman managed to reach the world of Baal across the Imperium Nihilus, homeworld of the Blood Angels, which was under assault from alien Tyranids of Hive Fleet Leviathan. Guilliman found Baal on the brink of collapse, and led a surging offensive to destroy the ravenous xenos, liberating Baal and its moons, Baal Prime and Baal Secondus. Hive Fleet Leviathan was almost completely destroyed, but some splinters of it escaped into the surrounding sector, and Baal and its moons were left devastated, with Baal Primus left devoid of life and Baal Secundus in disarray. Guilliman oversaw the rapid reconstruction of the worlds, and met with Dante, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels, who fell to his knees before Guilliman, begging for forgiveness for his perceived failure in defending his home. Guilliman insisted that there was nothing to forgive, and that Dante had won a great victory in crippling a Hive Fleet. Guilliman then named Dante the Warden of the Imperium Nihilus, placing him in command of all Imperial forces still present in the region. However, Guilliman, seeing that the populace of Baal and its moons had been in strife long before the Tyranid invasion, living in horrid conditions on worlds considered feral by Imperial standards, yet only differentiated from Hive Worlds by the commoner's access to technology, ordered Dante to uplift the surviving populace of Baal Secundus. It had long been in the Imperium's power to remold the moon into a civilized, hospitable, advanced world, but the prevailing belief among Astartes was that only the strong make good warriors, and that the strong came from only the most challenging conditions. Guilliman believed it was wrong, that cruel worlds only make cruel men, who in turn make cruel warriors and cruel lords, leaving the oppressed masses of the downtrodden easily susceptible to the lure of Chaos. Thus, Guilliman commanded that a line had to be drawn between good and evil, and the people deserved a better life after all they had sacrificed, allowing true humanity to shine through. With that, and with Cawl handling the revival of Baal Secundus, Guilliman departed Baal to continue his crusade across the stars.
Guilliman battles Mortarion on Iax
As the Indomitus Crusade wore down, Guilliman got news that Ultramar was being attacked by the forces of Nurgle, led by the Death Guard in a campaign known as the Plague Wars. As such, Guilliman returned to Ultramar with his forces, fighting to turn the tide of the Death Guard assault and surviving many assassination attempts. With some objections, Guilliman interrogated a captured Daemonhost to find where Mortarion was, learning that his brother was on the planet Iax. Despite knowing it was a trap, Guilliman confronted his brother-turned-Daemon Prince of Nurgle on Iax, where the two fought across the blighted surface. However, Mortarion's Warp-fueled powers eventually overcame Guilliman, allowing Mortarion to poison Guilliman with the Godblight, a disease that could kill even Primarchs. As Guilliman lay dying from the Godblight, refusing to give in to the 'gifts' of Nurgle to ease the pain, he saw a vision of his meeting with the Emperor, except different from what he remembered. At the same moment, the power of the Emperor flowed through Guilliman, curing the Godblight and bringing Guilliman to his feet. Mortarion, sensing the power of his father, fled in terror as Guilliman used the Emperor's Sword to unleash a psychic attack, cutting directly into the Garden of Nurgle, devastating part of the realm and even wounding Nurgle itself. With that, Guilliman fell unconscious, and awoke once more in orbit over Iax, having been evacuated by the Adeptus Custodes.
With Mortarion's retreat, the rest of the Death Guard withdrew, also spurred on by Khorne abruptly invading Nurgle's realm. As Ultarmar was cleansed of Chaos presence, Guilliman found himself questioning his former atheism, starting to believe in the divinity of the Emperor. With that, Guilliman returned to ruling the Imperium, probing Cawl for a means to revive the Emperor while investigating the mysterious Pariah Nexus, a sector of space seemingly free of the Warp. Additionally, Guilliman planned to venture to the still-isolated regions of the Imperium Nihilus across the Great Rift and improve its defenses.
Guilliman later approved Project Aurora, an incredibly ambitious and risky project to harness a Warp-nullifying Necron weapon held in the Tomb World of Demerium, powered by a Warp-based power source that Ultramarines hero Demetrian Titus had seemingly destroyed on the Forge World of Graia almost a century prior. The power source had been previously used for an Inquisition project known as the Psychic Scourge on Graia, which only resulted in Chaos Marines invading and rewiring the weapon to instead create Warp rifts to invade, and a fragment of the power source was again sought by Black Legion Sorcerer Lord Tumulus Samael, who in turn was thwarted by Malum Caedo. With these threats in mind, Guilliman went to great lengths to try to ensure that the forces of Chaos wouldn't find out about the fragment's whereabouts or Aurora, banking on the project's success to potentially even close the Great Rift and cripple the forces of Chaos. However, unbeknownst to Guilliman, Thousand Sons Sorcerer Lord Imurah had already discovered Aurora and had been secretly influencing one of its lead developers, Tech-Priest Morias Leuze, resulting in the project being hijacked once again and nearly plunging the Recidious System into the clutches of Chaos, before Titus- now a Primaris Marine- was able to destroy the shard for good and expel the threat.
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Trivia[]
- Some fans of the Warhammer community would consider Roboute Guilliman to be the Warhammer 40K counterpart of Karl Franz from Warhammer Fantasy.
